^ 


JOHN  TYLER 

Tenth  President  of  the  United  States 


AN  ADDRESS 

BY 

ARMISTEAD   C.   GORDON 

At  the  dedication,  October  12,  1915, 
of  the  Monument  erected  by  Congress 
in  Hollywood  Cemetery,  Richmond, 
Va. ,  in  memory  of  President  Tyler 


MONUMENT 

To 
PRESIDENT  JOHN  TYLER 

Erected  by   Congress 
IN  HOLLYWOOD  CEMETERY,  RICHMOND,  1915 


JOHN  TYLER 

Tenth  President  of  the  United  States 


AN  ADDRESS 

BY 

ARMISTEAD   C.   GORDON 

At  the  dedication,  October  12,  1915, 
of  the  Monument  erected  by  Congress 
in  Hollywood  Cemetery,  Richmond, 
Va. ,  in  memory  of  President  Tyler 


HENRY  MORE': 


Committee  on  Dedicatory  Ceremonies 


HENRY  C.  STUART 
Governor  of  Virginia 

GEORGE  AINSLIE 
Mayor  of  Richmond 

LIEUT.-COL.  J.  P.  JERVEY 
United  States  Army 

WM.  H.   ADAMS 
President  Board  of  Aldermen 

R.  L.  PETERS 
President  Common  Council 

BARTON  H.  GRUNDY 

Member  Board  of  Aldermen 

FRED.  H.  POWELL 

Member  of  Common  Council 

EDGAR  B.  ENGLISH 

Member  of  Common  Council 


864358 


Ceremonies 


PARADE MAJ.  W.  McK.  EVANS,  Chief  Marshal 

Capitol  Square  to  Hollywood 


ORDER  OF  EXERCISES  AT  THE  MONUMENT 
His  EXCELLENCY  HENRY  C.  STUART,  Governor  of  Virginia,  Presiding 

INVOCATION  ............................  RT.  REVEREND  ROBERT  A.  GIBSON 

P.  E.  Bishop  of  Virginia 

REMARKS  ...............................  HON.  JOHN  LAMB 

Patron  of  the  Bill  in  Congress  for  the  erection  of  the  monument 

Music—  America    ...  ....................  COAST  ARTILLERY  BAND 

Fort  Monroe,   Va. 


HON.  ARMISTEAD  C.  GORDON 


Music—  Auld  Lang  Syne  ................  COAST  ARTILLERY  BAND 

Fort  Monroe,  Va. 

UNVEILING  OF  THE  MONUMENT  ..........  MRS.  PEARL  TYLER  ELLIS 

Only  surviving  daughter  of  President  Tyler 

PRESIDENTIAL  SALUTE  ...................  RICHMOND  HOWITZERS 

Music—  The  Star  Spangled  Banner  ......  COAST  ARTILLERY  BAND 

Fort  Monroe,  Va. 

BENEDICTION  ............................  RT.    REVEREND    COLLINS    DENNY 

Bishop  M.  E.  Church,  South 


An  Account  of  tW'AbftBn-^f-  tlit.;£ongress 

of  the  United  States  in  Providing 

This  Monument 


BY  AN  act  approved  March  4,  1911,  Congress  authorized  the  erection 
of  a  suitable  monument  over  the  grave  of  the  late  John  Tyler, 
former  President  of  the  United  States,  in  Hollywood  Cemetery, 
Richmond,  Va.,  and,  by  an  act  approved  August  24,  1912,  an  appropriation 
of  $10,000  was  made  for  the  purpose,  provided  that  no  part  of  the  amount 
so  appropriated  should  be  expended  until  the  Secretary  of  War  was  satis 
fied  of  the  existence  of  a  responsible  legal  association  for  the  care  and 
maintenance  of  the  monument,  and  provided  further,  that  when  the  said 
monument  was  erected,  the  responsibility  for  the  care  and  maintenance 
of  the  same  should  be  with  such  association,  and  without  expense  to  the 
United  States.  In  pursuance  of  this  law,  the  Hollywood  Cemetery  Com 
pany  agreed  to  take  charge  of  the  Tyler  lot  in  Hollywood  Cemetery  as 
soon  as  the  monument  it  was  proposed  to  have  placed  in  the  lot  was  com 
pleted,  and  to  keep  the  lot  in  perpetual  care,  having  full  regard  to  its 
sightly  and  respectable  appearance,  as  is  done  in  all  other  lots  in  said 
cemetery  that  are  under  the  perpetual  care  of  said  company,  it  being 
understood  that  the  responsibility  for  the  care  and  maintenance  should  be 
without  expense  to  the  United  States. 

The  Secretary  of  War,  under  date  of  November  26.  1912,  directed  the 
Chief  of  Engineers,  United  States  Army,  to  select  an  officer  of  the  corps 
of  engineers,  United  States  Army,  to  take  charge  of  the  construction  of 
the  monument,  the  advertising  for  bids  and  designs,  conducting  all  neces 
sary  correspondence  regarding  design  of  monument  and  the  inscriptions, 
and  the  disbursing  of  the  appropriation  made  by  the  sundry  civil  act  ap 
proved  August  24,  1912,  for  the  construction  of  the  monument. 

In  accordance  with  the  orders  of  the  Secretary  of  War,  the  Chief  of 
Engineers,  United  States  Army,  under  date  of  December  10,  1912,  desig 
nated  the  district  engineer  officer  at  Norfolk,  Va.,  to  carry  out  the  instruc 
tions  given. 

On  December  16,  1913,  competitive  designs  for  the  monument  were 
invited  by  the  Secretary  of  War,  and,  as  a  result  of  this  competition,  and 
on  the  recommendation  of  the  Commission  of  Fine  Arts,  Washington, 
D.  C,  the  design  submitted  by  The  T.  F.  McGann  &  Sons  Company,  of 
Boston,  Mass.,  was  accepted. 


A  contract  was  entered  into  witji  .the  successful  competitors,  which 
was  approved  by'tJ-Je/Chief  o'f  ErJgStfeei-sjon  June  23,  1914.  The  erection  of 
the  monument  was*  cflmplefecT  on  Juhe*Q,  1915. 

The  folloVyhg  1?  Jtheistmptojr's  See^riptjon  of  the  monument: 

"Essentially  the  monument  will  consist  of  a  monolithic  granite  shaft 
rising  from  a  granite  pedestal,  before  which  will  be  placed  a  bronze  bust 
of  the  President,  and  surmounting  which  will  be  a  bronze  finial. 

"The  bronze  finial  will  be  visible  from  a  considerable  distance  and  as 
it  is  seen  to  consist  of  a  Greek  urn  supported  between  the  spread  wings 
of  two  American  eagles,  it  will  indicate  at  once  the  burial  place  of  a  man 
of  national  character. 

"Upon  a  closer  approach  an  heroic  bronze  bust  of  the  President  will  be 
observed  resting  in  a  dignified  manner  upon  a  pedestal  of  the  monolith 
after  the  excellent  manner  of  the  ancient  Greek  sarcophagi. 

"On  each  side  of  the  monolith  there  will  be  a  bas-relief,  the  one  being 
a  life-sized  figure  of  the  Republic  with  a  shield  bearing  the  seals  of  the 
United  States  and  of  the  State  of  Virginia,  significant  of  his  relations  with 
the  national  government  and  his  native  State.  The  other  will  be  a  draped 
female  figure  representing  memory,  holding  in  one  hand  a  laurel  wreath 
and  cultivating  with  the  other  the  young  tree  of  the  Republic,  which  during 
Tyler's  administration  began  to  grow  and  expand  in  an  exceptional  manner. 

"The  four  faces  of  the  monolith  will  be  panelled  as  indicated  on  the 
model  and  especially  will  the  one  on  the  rear  be  suitable  for  an  inscription." 


c 


-2X 


PRESIDENT  of  tlie  UNITED  STATES 


JOHN  TYLER 


WE  ARE  gathered  together  to  do  honor  to  a  great 
man,  and  to  dedicate  to  his  memory  this  monument, 
erected  by  the  government  of  his  country,  that  he 
served  with  unexcelled  fidelity  and  patriotism.     John  Tyler, 
tenth  President  of  the  United  States,  was  born  at  the  home  of 
his  father,  "Greenway,"  in  Charles  City  County,  Virginia,  on 
March  29,   1790.     He  came  of  a  distinguished  line  of  Vir 
ginians,  and  all  his  earlier  ancestors  of  the  Tyler  name  held 
places  of  significance  in  their  communities,  as  justice  of  the 
county  bench,  or  sheriff,  or  coroner. 

John  Tyler,  the  President's  great-grandfather,  who  died 
about  1/27,  was  a  justice  of  James  City  County;  John  Tyler, 
his  grandfather,  who  died  in  1773,  was  marshal  of  the  Vice- 
Admiralty  Court,  and  his  father,  Judge  John  Tyler,  not  only 
occupied  a  prominent  position  as  Judge  of  the  General  Court, 
but  he  was  also  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Delegates  of  the 
General  Assembly,  Governor  of  the  Commonwealth,  and  at 
the  time  of  his  death  in  1813,  at  the  age  of  sixty-five,  Judge  of 
the  United  States  District  Court  of  Virginia. 

The  earliest  of  President  Tyler's  progenitors  in  the  colony 
was  Henry  Tyler,  who  is  first  mentioned  in  the  York  County 
records  in  1645;  and  his  son  Henry,  who  was  himself  justice, 
sheriff,  and  coroner  in  succession,  was  the  father  of  John 
Tyler,  the  President's  great-grandfather.  It  is  interesting  to 
observe  that  since  the  immigrant,  Henry  Tyler,  the  line  has 
been  one  "native  and  to  the  manor  born,"  and  that  in  no  in 
stance,  down  to  the  present  generation,  have  they  had  their 


i  I 


homes  elsewhere  thap.in  that  Jiptable  section  of  Colony  and 
Commonwealth  thai  has  been  net 'inaptly  designated  as  "The 
Cradle  of  the  Re£iit>l;e.i>: ;'•/:: :  :  /..  '' *: 

John  Tyler,  the  marshal  of  the  Vice-Admiralty  Court,  mar 
ried  Anne  Contesse,  only  daughter  of  Dr.  Lewis  Contesse,  a 
French  Huguenot  physician,  who  lived  and  practised  his  pro 
fession  in  Williamsburg  during  the  first  quarter  of  the  eigh 
teenth  century ;  and  it  is  doubtless  to  the  blending  of  the  Gallic 
sprightliness  of  Contesse  with  the  English  steadiness  which 
characterized  the  Tylers,  that  the  remarkable  talents  of  the 
descendants  of  this  union  may  be  attributed. 

Not  only  has  the  line  of  the  Tylers  since  illustrated  these 
talents,  but  also  that  of  Bouldin  in  the  persons  of  the  descend 
ants  of  Judge  Tyler's  sister,  Joanna,  who  married  Major  Wood 
Bouldin,  and  was  mother  of  Thomas  Tyler  Bouldin,  M.  C, 
James  Wood  Bouldin,  M.  C.,  and  Lewis  Contesse  Bouldin, 
long  a  State  Senator;  and  who  was  also  the  ancestress  of 
Wood  Bouldin,  late  Judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Appeals 
of  Virginia,  and  of  Powhatan  Bouldin,  writer  and  author  of 
"Home  Reminiscences  of  John  Randolph  of  Roanoke."  This 
mingled  strain  is  further  distinguished  in  the  talents  and  abil 
ities  of  the  descendants  of  President  Tyler's  sister,  Maria 
Henry,  who  married  John  B.  Seawell,  and  was  mother  of  two 
brilliant  lawyers  of  the  Commonwealth,  John  Tyler  Seawell 
and  Machen  Boswell  Seawell,  and  grandmother  of  Miss  Molly 
Elliott  Seawell,  the  novelist. 

But  save  the  President  himself,  none  of  the  descendants 
of  John  Tyler,  the  Marshal,  and  his  wife,  Anne  Contesse, 
achieved  or  deserved  a  larger  fame  than  did  their  son, 
Judge  John  Tyler.  He  was  the  personal  friend  of  Thomas 
Jefferson  and  of  Patrick  Henry,  and  was  imbued  with  their 
principles  of  republican  constitutional  government.  Jefferson 
said  of  him  that  he  was  "a  veteran  patriot  who,  from  the  first 
dawn  of  the  Revolution  to  this  clay,  has  pursued  unchangeably 

12 


the  same  honest  course" ;  and  it  is  worthy  of  observation  that 
the  Sage  of  Monticello  should  have  thus  emphasized  in  the 
father  the  characteristic  of  consistency,  which  was  one  of  the 
most  noticeable  traits  in  the  career  of  Judge  Tyler's  distin 
guished  son. 

Mr.  Henry's  admiration  for  Judge  Tyler  was  marked. 
Judge  Spencer  Roane  wrote  to  William  Wirt  that  "Mr.  Henry 
was  very  fond  of  John  Tyler  as  a  warm-hearted  patriot  and 
an  honest  and  sensible  man" ;  and  Roane  himself,  who  adorned 
with  conspicuous  ability  and  learning  the  bench  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  State,  said  of  Judge  Tyler  that  "his  understand 
ing  was  of  the  highest  order,"  and  that  he  "was  plain  in  his 
appearance,  for  his  great  soul  disdained  the  tinsel  of  pomp  and 
parade,  and  was  intent  only  on  virtue."  Henry  Clay  said  of 
him  on  the  floor  of  Congress  that  "a  purer  patriot  or  more 
honest  man  never  breathed  the  breath  of  life" ;  while  the  Gen 
eral  Assembly  of  his  native  State  resolved  of  him  that  he  was 
"a  venerable  patriot  of  the  Revolution,  a  faithful  and  able  legis 
lator,  Judge  and  Chief  Magistrate  of  this  Commonwealth,  a 
man  of  fixed  and  undeviating  integrity,  yet  endeared  to  his 
friends  by  every  softer  virtue." 

Judge  Tyler  had  been  in  his  youth  a  student  at  the  College 
of  William  and  Mary,  and  in  company  with  Mr.  Jefferson  he 
had  heard  Patrick  Henry's  speech  on  the  Stamp  Act,  and  had 
felt  his  patriotism  kindled  by  the  orator's  voice  and  words. 
His  antagonism  to  the  British  Government  and  his  intolerance 
of  its  acts  of  oppression  toward  the  Colonies  became  so  earnest 
and  outspoken  that  his  father  was  accustomed  to  predict  of 
him  that  he  would  be  "hung  as  a  rebel."  He  served  on  the 
Committee  of  Safety  for  Charles  City  County  in  1774,  and  he 
joined  Henry's  troops,  with  the  local  company,  of  which  he 
was  captain,  when  Dunmore  removed  the  powder  from  the 
magazine  at  Williamsburg.  The  Convention  of  1776  made 
him  Judge  of  Admiralty;  but  his  eager  patriotism  impelled 
him  to  larger  activities  than  those  of  the  bench,  and  in  1778 

13 


he  became  a  member  of  the  Legislature.  Here  he  served  with 
ability  and  fidelity  successively  as  chairman  of  the  committee 
of  justice,  of  the  committee  of  the  whole,  and  as  Speaker. 
His  fame  as  a  statesman  rests  on  his  steady  support  in  the 
Legislature  of  the  military  and  financial  measures  of  the 
American  Revolution  and  of  the  Jeffersonian  reforms  during 
his  incumbency  of  the  office  of  Speaker,  on  his  authorship  of 
the  resolutions  for  the  Annapolis  Assembly  of  1786,  on  his 
stalwart  opposition  in  the  Virginia  Convention  of  1788  to  the 
adoption  of  the  Federal  Constitution  because  it  permitted  the 
continuance  of  the  slave-trade,  a  measure  that  was  fastened  on 
the  country  by  the  votes  of  four  New  England  and  two  South 
ern  States  of  the  Union ;  and  on  his  services  as  a  member  of  the 
judiciary,  and  as  Governor  of  the  Commonwealth. 

His  gubernatorial  term  began  on  December  i,  1808,  a 
notable  year  in  the  history  of  Virginia,  as  being  that  which 
saw  the  abolition  by  England  of  the  African  slave  trade,  which 
Governor  Tyler  had  so  strenuously  opposed  in  the  Constitu 
tional  Convention  of  1788.  His  administration  of  the  high 
office  of  Governor  was  marked  by  the  simplicity  of  his  manners 
and  conduct,  by  the  fidelity  and  uprightness  with  which  he 
discharged  his  duties,  and  by  his  continual  enjoyment  in  an 
unusual  measure  of  the  confidence,  respect,  and  esteem  of  his 
constituents.  His  term  expired  in  January,  1811,  and  during 
its  continuance,  under  the  influence  of  one  of  his  messages  to 
the  General  Assembly,  on  the  subject  of  education  and 
the  schools,  was  established,  through  the  legislative  activities 
of  James  Barbour,  of  Orange,  a  successor  in  office  of  Governor 
Tyler,  the  still  existing  Literary  Fund  of  Virginia. 

Judge  Tyler's  career  on  the  bench  was  characterized  by 
the  same  diligent  attention  to  business,  uprightness  of  purpose 
and  intelligent  discharge  of  duty,  that  adorned  all  of  his  public 
life.  He  had  studied  law  for  some  years  under  Robert  Carter 
Nicholas,  a  distinguished  jurist  and  patriot  of  Judge  Tyler's 
youth,  whose  name  and  fame  were  preserved  and  enchanced  in 

14 


the  lives  of  his  four  sons,  of  whom  it  has  been  said :  "No  Vir 
ginia  family  contributed  more  to  Mr.  Jefferson's  personal  suc 
cess  than  the  powerful  family  of  the  Nicholases  —  powerful 
in  talents,  powerful  in  probity,  powerful  in  their  numbers  and 
union.  On  every  page  of  Mr.  Jefferson's  political  history  the 
names  of  George,  John,  Wilson  Gary,  and  Philip  Norborne 
Nicholas  are  written." 

Having  obtained  his  license,  he  practised  for  a  time  in  James 
"City  County,  and  in  1 772  removed  to  Charles  City  County.  He 
was  Judge  of  the  Admiralty  Court  in  1776,  and  again  in  1786, 
becoming  by  virtue  of  the  latter  appointment  a  Judge  of  the 
first  Supreme  Court  of  Appeals  of  Virginia.  Upon  the  abo 
lition  of  the  State  Admiralty  Court  by  the  operation  of  the  new 
Federal  Constitution,  he  was  elected  in  1788  a  Judge  of  the 
General  Court,  in  which  office  he  continued  for  twenty  years. 
During  his  occupancy  of  the  State  bench,  he  contributed  to 
the  jurisprudence  of  the  country  his  notable  opinion  in  the  case 
of  Kamper  vs.  Hawkins,*  in  which  he  maintained  the  authority 
of  the  constitution  over  legislative  enactment,  and  thereby 
aided  in  the  establishment  of  the  principle  in  America. 

In  1811,  upon  the  expiration  of  his  term  as  Governor, 
Judge  Tyler  was  appointed,  by  President  Madison,  Judge  of 
the  District  Court  of  the  United  States  for  the  State  of  Vir 
ginia.  Jefferson,  with  grim  political  enmity  to  his  kinsman, 
John  Marshall,  doubtless  had  a  sardonic  pleasure  in  breaking 
through  his  established  rule :  "Never  to  solicit  an  appointment 
from  the  President,"  by  asking  in  a  letter  of  glowing  enco 
mium  the  elevation  to  the  district  bench  of  the  able  and  in 
domitable  Tyler,  with  whom  the  Chief  Justice  would  sit  in 
holding  the  Circuit  Court.  He  wrotef  of  him  to  Mr.  Madison 
as  the  only  man  in  Virginia  capable  of  maintaining  his  own 
with  Judge  Marshall :  "It  will  be  difficult  to  find  a  character  of 
firmness  enough  to  preserve  his  independence  on  the  same  bench 


*  i  Virginia  Cases,  p.  20. 

t  Ford,  Writings  of  Thomas  Jefferson,  IX,  p.  275. 


with  Marshall.  Tyler,  I  am  certain,  would  do  it";  and  his 
opinion  was  verified  in  Judge  Tyler's  successful  contention 
against  the  principle  of  a  universal  common  law  jurisdiction 
for  the  Federal  Courts,  that  was  favored  by  his  colleague. 

Judge  Tyler  was  an  earnest  and  patriotic  supporter  of  the 
War  of  1812  with  Great  Britain,  and  decided  the  first  prize  case 
arising  out  of  the  war.  He  held  the  office  of  District  Judge 
until  his  death  at  "Greenway,"  Charles  City  County,  Va.,  Jan 
uary  6,  1813,  and  died  with  the  expression  of  his  regret  that  he 
"could  not  live  long  enough  to  see  that  proud  British  nation 
once  more  humbled  by  American  arms." 

Judge  Tyler  married  Mary  Armistead,  only  child  of  Robert 
Booth  Armistead,  of  York  County,  Va.,  a  descendant  of 
William  Armistead,  immigrant  to  the  Colony  from  Kirk 
Deighton,  in  Yorkshire,  England,  who  was  also  a  progenitor 
of  President  William  Henry  Harrison,  and  the  two  Whig 
candidates  of  1839,  "Tippecanoe  and  Tyler,  too,"  were  cousins 
sprung  from  a  common  Armistead  ancestor. 

John  Tyler,  the  President,  was  the  second  son  of  the  mar 
riage  of  Judge  John  Tyler  and  Mary  Armistead.  His  earlier 
education  was  obtained  in  an  "old  field  school,"  taught  by  a 
tyrannical  Scot  named  McMurdo ;  and  the  story  is  told  that 
the  future  President,  at  the  precocious  age  of  eleven,  was  one 
of  the  leaders  in  a  rebellion  of  the  pupils  against  their  master. 
The  dominie  was  an  admirer  of  John  Tyler,  and  when  he  saw 
him  participating  in  the  attempt  of  the  boys  to  lock  him  up, 
he  exclaimed,  after  the  manner  of  Scots  dominies,  "Et  tu, 
Brute!"  and  surrendered.  But  his  regard  for  the  boy  did  not 
prevent  Mr.  McMurdo  from  reporting  his  son's  conduct  to 
Judge  Tyler,  who  countered  on  the  pedagogue's  apt  Latin 
quotation  by  another,  since  become  scarcely  less  classic,  and 
replied,  "Sic  semper  tyrannis!" 

In  1807,  young  Tyler  graduated  at  William  and  Mary  Col 
lege,  which  with  its  roster  of  statesmen  and  lawyers,  and 

16 


soldiers,  had  long  been  a  nursery  of  greatness.  He  then  studied 
law  for  two  years  under  Edmund  Randolph,  Secretary  of  State 
under  Washington,  and  son-in-law  of  Robert  Carter  Nicholas, 
his  father's  distinguished  law  preceptor.  His  father  had  been 
a  student  at  William  and  Mary  when  Mr.  Jefferson  was  study 
ing  law  in  Williamsburg  under  the  eminent  jurist,  George 
Wythe,  and  from  him  the  son  early  imbibed,  and  continued  to 
cherish  and  maintain  throughout  his  life  the  republican  princi 
ples  of  Jeffersonian  democracy.  It  was  with  him  a  fundamental 
tenet,  that  the  union  of  the  States  constituted  in  effect  the 
concert  of  two  nations,  differing  in  institutions,  in  occupations, 
in  religion,  and  in  manners,  each  from  the  other,  and  that  the 
only  sure  method  of  preventing  separation  or  war  was  in  the 
maintenance  and  preservation  of  the  rights  of  the  constituent 
States'.  This  remained  his  political  guiding-star  through  his 
career,  and  by  its  light  must  that  career  be  tested  and  judged. 
He  held  that  the  activities  of  the  Federal  Government  should 
be  kept  in  most  things  very  far  apart  from  those  of  the  States ; 
that  they  should  be  confined  chiefly  to  those  foreign  relations 
that  involved  the  action  and  conduct  of  a  central  power,  while 
they  interfered  as  little  as  possible  with  the  internal  and  domes 
tic  affairs  of  the  country. 

Sprung  from  the  struggle  of  antagonistic  interests  and 
passions,  the  Federal  Constitution  was  full  of  trouble  for  the 
future ;  and  it  was  the  aggressive  assertion  of  the  national  prin 
ciple  by  the  North  in  derogation  of  this  principle  held  by  Mr. 
Tyler,  that  stirred  the  fires  of  nullification  in  1832,  and  kindled 
the  mighty  conflagration  of  secession  and  war  in  1861,  which 
came  near  resulting  in  that  permanent  disruption  which  he 
apprehended,  and  so  long  sought  to  avert. 

It  is  in  the  profound  recognition  of  this  great  fundamental 
characteristic  of  President  Tyler's  political  creed  that  the  key 
to  his  political  history  is  to  be  found.  Believing  as  he  did  in 
the  basic  idea  that  the  Union  of  North  and  South  —  a  union 
that  from  the  beginning  was  socially  and  economically  incon- 

17 


grous  —  could  only  be  maintained  through  State-Rights,  Mr. 
Tyler  was,  as  circumstances  developed,  first  a  Democratic- 
Republican,  and  when  that  party  broke  up  in  1824-1828  a 
State-Rights  Democrat,  and  when  the  Jackson  and  Van  Buren 
nationalists  in  the  Democratic  party  obtained  control  of  it  and 
as  a  consequence  the  Whig  party  was  formed,  a  Whig  who 
agreed  with  the  State-Rights  Democrats  on  state-rights  and  dif 
fered  from  nationalist  Democrats  on  nationalism.  After  all  is 
said,  there  was  never  for  him  a  shadow  of  variableness  or  turn 
ing  from  the  great  doctrine  of  State-Rights,  which  was  a  very 
part  of  himself.  His  attitude  was  never  a  change  of  position, 
but  a  natural  alignment  with  parties  as  they  successively  de 
veloped. 

In  1809,  two  years  before  attaining  his  majority,  the  young 
graduate  of  William  and  Mary  was  admitted  to  the  bar;  and 
had  already  entered  upon  a  good  practice,  when  in  1811  he  was 
elected  to  the  General  Assembly.  Here  he  was  a  firm  sup 
porter  of  Mr.  Madison's  election ;  and  at  an  early  stage  of  his 
service,  he  became  prominent  as  an  eloquent  and  persuasive 
speaker.  The  question  of  the  recharter  of  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States  was  a  burning  political  issue  of  the  times,  as  it 
continued  to  be  for  many  years.  William  B.  Giles  and  Richard 
Brent,  the  Senators  from  Virginia,  ignored  the  instructions  of 
the  Virginia  Legislature,  and  favored  in  1811  the  recharter  of 
the  bank.  In  January,  1812,  Mr.  Tyler  introduced  a  resolu 
tion  censuring  these  Senators,  taking  then  the  two  positions 
from  which  he  never  deviated,  first  that  the  act  creating  the 
bank  was  in  violation  of  the  Federal  Constitution,  and,  second, 
that  the  legislature  of  a  State  had  the  right  to  instruct  its 
senators  in  Congress,  whose  duty  it  was  to  obey  such  instruc 
tions  or  to  resign. 

It  is  not  without  interest  to  note  that  it  was  Mr.  Benjamin 
Watkins  Leigh  who  drew  the  instructions  of  the  Virginia  Leg 
islature  to  the  Senators ;  and  that  Mr.  Tyler  was  the  author  of 
its  resolution  of  censure ;  for  subsequent  events,  growing  out  of 

18 


these  two  resolutions,  serve  to  illustrate  the  latter's  steady  ad 
herence  to  what  he  conceived  to  be  a  principle.  When  Benton 
offered  his  famous  "Expunging  Resolution"  in  the  United 
States  Senate,  Mr.  Leigh  and  Mr.  Tyler  were  Senators  from 
Virginia.  The  Virginia  Legislature  instructed  these  Senators 
to  support  the  "Expunging  Resolution."  Both  refused  to 
obey,  but  Mr.  Tyler's  refusal  was  accompanied  by  his  regis- 
nation. 

On  the  2Oth  of  March,  1813,  Mr.  Tyler  married  Miss 
Letitia  Christian,  daughter  of  Robert  Christian,  of  New  Kent 
County,  Va.  "This  marriage,"  it  was1  said,  "united  the  house 
of  Democracy  in  the  bridegroom  and  the  house  of  Federalism 
in  the  bride" ;  but  the  new  house  was  Democratic. 

Robert  Tyler,  a  son  of  this  marriage,  was  distinguished  as 
poet,  politician,  and  orator.  He  was  clerk  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  Pennsylvania,  and  chairman  of  the  Democratic  party 
in  that  State,  register  of  the  Treasury  of  the  Southern  Con 
federacy,  and  at  the  time  of  his  death,  in  1877,  was  editor  of 
the  Montgomery  Mail  and  Advertiser. 

A  few  weeks  after  his  marriage,  Mr.  Tyler  left  his  home 
at  the  head  of  a  militia  company  to  assist  in  the  defense  of 
Richmond,  then  threatened  by  the  British;  but  his  command 
was  not  called  into  action,  and  his  military  service  was  con 
cluded  after  a  month. 

Mr.  Tyler  was  re-elected  annually  to  the  Legislature  until 
1815,  when  he  was  elected  a  member  of  the  Executive  Council, 
and  the  next  year,  when  a  vacancy  occurred  in  his  congres 
sional  district,  he  was  chosen  for  the  unexpired  term.  He  was 
again  elected  to  Congress  for  two  successive  terms,  and  early 
in  his  career  became  conspicuous  as  a  strict  constructionist. 
He  opposed  Mr.  Calhoun's  bill  for  internal  improvements  by 
the  Federal  Government,  on  the  grounds  of  unconstitutionally, 
and  of  lack  of  uniform  application;  he  antagonized  the  enact 
ment  of  a  national  bankrupt  law ;  and  he  made  a  great  speech 

19 


against  the  bank,  and  to  the  circulation  of  this  speech  in  his 
district  he  attributed  his  first  re-election  to  Congress  without 
opposition. 

His  views  on  slavery  were  those  of  his  father,  who  had 
voted  in  the  Convention  of  1788  against  the  adoption  of  the 
Federal  Constitution  largely  on  the  ground  that  it  permitted  the 
continuance  of  the  slave  trade.  In  the  debates  in  Congress  on 
the  admission  of  Missouri,  he  took  strong  position  against  any 
restriction  of  slavery  in  the  new  State,  insisting  with  great 
vigor  and  power  that,  by  the  very  terms  of  the  Federal  Consti 
tution,  the  territories  should,  when  admitted,  possess  all  the 
rights  of  the  original  States.  He  went  further,  and  added,  as 
Mr.  Jefferson  and  Mr.  Madison  also  thought,  that  it  was  unfair 
for  the  North,  which  had  accomplished  within  its  limits  the 
emancipation  and  scattering  of  the  slaves,  to  wall  in  Virginia's 
population,  and  thereby  to  confirm  the  continuance  of  slavery 
there.  He  was  foremost  and  most  persistent  in  his  congres 
sional  course  in  holding  that  Congress  had  no  constitutional 
power  to  legislate  either  for  or  against  slavery  in  any  territory; 
and  when  the  Missouri  Compromise  measure  was  adopted, 
with  its  demarking  line  of  36  degrees,  30  minutes,  that  seemed 
to  Mr.  Jefferson  in  his  old  age  at  Monticello,  "like  a  fire-bell 
in  the  night,"  Mr.  Tyler  cast  his  vote  in  the  negative,  with  the 
profound  and  well-founded  conviction,  as  against  that  of  Mr. 
Clay  and  of  Mr.  Calhoun,  that  the  compromise  bill  was  an 
abject  surrender  of  the  whole  situation. 

But  Mr.  Tyler  never  changed  his  earliest  judgment  that  a 
negro  population  was  an  evil,  whether  slave  or  free;  and 
throughout  his  career  he  was  a  consistent  opponent  of  the  con 
tinuance  of  the  slave-trade,  which  his  own  State  of  Virginia 
had  been  the  first  constituted  government  in  the  world  to  pro 
hibit  in  1778. 

In  1832,  as  a  member  of  the  Senate  committee,  he  inserted 
in  the  code  of  laws,  prepared  by  him  for  the  District  of  Col- 


20 


umbia,  a  provision  prohibiting  the  use  of  the  District  as  a  slave 
mart.  When  President,  he  wrote  in  his  message  to  Congress, 
June  i,  1841,  that  the  highest  consideration  of  public  honor, 
as  well  as  the  strongest  promptings  of  humanity,  require  a  re 
sort  to  the  most  vigorous  efforts  to  suppress  the  trade;  and 
again  in  his  message  of  December  7,  1841,  he  invited  the  atten 
tion  of  Congress  to  existing  laws  for  its  suppression,  and 
recommended  such  alterations  as  might  give  them  greater  force 
and  efficiency.  Later,  in  1842,  he  personally  secured*  the  in 
sertion  of  a  clause  in  the  Ashburton  Treaty,  providing  for  the 
maintenance  and  co-operation  of  British  and  American  squad 
rons  off  the  coast  of  Africa  for  the  suppression  of  the  trade, 
and  urged  the  ratification  of  the  treaty  upon  the  Senate  as  con 
ducive  to  the  abolition  of  what  he  termed  the  "unlawful  and 
inhuman  traffic." 

As  to  the  abolition  of  slavery  itself,  he  committed  it  to  the 
operation  of  time,  believing  that  if  it  could  not  be  attained  by 
the  deportation  of  the  negroes  as  contemplated  by  the  African 
Colonization  Society,  of  whose  Virginia  branch  he  was  Presi 
dent  in  1838,  it  would  take  place  by  some  other  means,  and 
peaceably,  if  left  free  from  organized  assaults  on  the  part  of  the 
Northern  abolitionists.  Indeed,  an  agency  of  this  character, 
not  duly  recognized  politically  at  the  time,  was  the  invention 
of  the  reaper  by  a  Virginian,  in  Rockbridge  County,  Cyrus 
Hall  McCormick.  The  phenomenal  development  of  all  kinds 
of  agricultural  machinery,  of  which  this  invention  proved  a 
stimulus,  would  probably  have  made  slavery  a  burden  upon  the 
planter  and  have  led  to  its  final  abolition. 

In  the  first  session  of  the  Sixteenth  Congress  a  protective 
tariff  bill  was  for  the  first  time  passed  by  the  House,  but  re 
jected  by  the  Senate.  Strict  constructionists,  like  Mr.  Tyler, 
believed  that  the  sole  power  given  by  the  Constitution  to  Con 
gress  in  the  fixing  of  tariffs  was  to  provide  thereby  for  the 


*  See  Mr.  Tyler's  letter  in  Letters  and  Times  of  the   Tylers,  II,  p. 
240,  also  p.  238. 


21 


expenses  of  government  and  for  the  payment  of  the  national 
debt;  and  that  any  arrangement  of  duties  for  the  benefit  of 
Northern  manufacturers  was  one-sided  and  unfair  and  a  usur 
pation  of  a  power  not  granted  or  implied.  To  this  tariff  bill, 
Mr.  Tyler  made  the  opening  objections  in  an  argument  of 
great  force,  which  created  a  deep  impression,  though  it  did  not 
defeat  the  passage  of  the  measure  in  the  House. 

In  1821,  on  account  of  failing  health,  Mr.  Tyler  resigned 
his  seat  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  and  retired  to  private 
life.  Two  years  later,  however,  he  was  again  elected  to  the 
General  Assembly  ol  Virginia,  and  in  the  year  following  he 
was  nominated  for  the  United  States  Senate  to  fill  a  vacancy, 
but  was  defeated  by  Mr.  Tazewell.  In  1824,  he  opposed  the 
attempted  removal  of  William  and  Mary  College  to  Richmond, 
and  later  became  successively  rector  and  chancellor  of  that 
venerable  institution  of  learning,  whose  earlier  services  in  the 
cause  of  education  and  scholarship,  after  an  entire  prostration 
by  the  war  between  the  States,  have  been  renewed  in  the  able 
administration  of  his  son,  Dr.  Lyon  G.  Tyler,  its  present 
President. 

In  December,  1825,  Mr.  Tyler  was  elected  Governor  of 
Virginia  by  the  Legislature,  which,  down  to  the  Constitution 
of  1850,  possessed  the  power  of  gubernatorial  election.  He 
was  re-elected  Governor  for  a  second  term  by  an  unanimous 
vote;  but  before  completing  this  term  he  was  sent,  in  1827,  to 
the  United  States  Senate,  over  John  Randolph  of  Roanoke,  by 
a  combination  of  the  Clay  and  Adams  men  in  the  Legislature 
with  the  followers  of  William  H.  Crawford. 

At  this  point,  for  a  better  understanding  of  Mr.  Tyler's 
career,  a  brief  retrospect  is  advisable.  In  1816  the  old  Federal 
ist  party  of  Hamilton  and  John  Adams  was  crushed  and  buried 
under  the  odium  excited  by  its  opposition  to  the  War  of  1812, 
and  during  Mr.  Monroe's  administration  its  ancient  antagonist, 
the  Democratic-Republican  party  of  Jefferson,  was  the  only 

22 


political  organization  in  the  country.  Towards  the  end  of 
Monroe's  term,  in  1824,  this  party  split  into  various  factions, 
headed  by  Andrew  Jackson,  John  Quincy  Adams,  William  H. 
Crawford  and  Henry  Clay.  Of  these  Crawford  was  a  recog 
nized  strict  constructionist,  and  unequivocally  opposed  to  the 
ideas  then  popular  under  the  name  of  the  American  system, 
embracing  internal  improvements  and  a  protective  tariff.  Mr. 
Tyler,  along  with  Mr.  Jefferson  and  the  other  Virginia  leaders, 
favored  Mr.  Crawford  as  Monroe's  successor,  but  he  was  soon 
retired  from  the  race  by  a  stroke  of  paralysis.  None  of  the 
candidates  receiving  a  majority  vote  of  the  Electoral  College, 
the  election  came  before  the  House  of  Representatives,  which 
selected  Mr.  Adams  by  a  narrow  majority  of  one  State  in  a 
minority  vote  of  the  members.  The  strict  constructionists 
were  inclined  to  favor  Mr.  John  Quincy  Adams  over  either 
Clay  or  Jackson,  who  were  too  much  committed  to  the  Ameri 
can  system. 

The  charge  of  a  corrupt  bargain  at  this  time  between  Mr. 
Adams  and  Mr.  Clay,  characterized  by  the  bitter  tongue  of 
John  Randolph  as  the  bargain  of  "Blifil  and  Black  George,  the 
Puritan  and  the  Blackleg,''  was  never  credited  by  Mr.  Tyler, 
but  he  found  himself  the  object  of  a  not  dissimilar  attack  on 
the  part  of  some  of  the  Jackson  men,  upon  his  election  soon 
after  as  Senator  over  Mr.  Randolph,  in  the  assertion  that  there 
must  have  been  some  secret  and  reprehensible  understanding  in 
the  matter  between  him  and  Mr.  Clay.  There  was  no  truth  in 
the  charge,  as  there  is  frequently  no  truth  in  personal  political 
accusation ;  and  Mr.  Tyler  believed  that  its  object  was  to  force 
him  into  some  unnecessary  statement  or  avowal,  in  favor  of 
Jackson,  which  he  refused  to  make.  The  scheme,  if  it  was 
such,  failed.  But  upon  Mr.  Adams  taking  a  decided  position 
in  his  messages  for  the  American  system,  the  Crawford  strict 
constructionists,  forced  to  what  they  regarded  as  a  choice  of 
evils,  turned  to  Jackson,  and  joined  in  with  his  nationalist 
following.  Mr.  Tyler  went  along  with  the  rest  of  the  Craw- 

23 


ford  men,  and  voted  for  Jackson  in  the  election  of  1828.  The 
factions  of  the  Democratic-Republican  Party  crystallized  into 
two  new  parties.  The  followers  of  Clay  and  John  Quincy 
Adams  took  the  name  of  National  Republicans,  and  the  fol 
lowers  of  Jackson  and  Crawford  that  of  Democrats.  Neither 
party  admitted  any  kinship  with  the  defunct  Federalist  Party 
of  Hamilton  and  John  Adams.  Both  Randolph  and  Tyler, 
however,  declined  to  become  partisans  of  Jackson,  and,  while 
they  both  supported  him  in  the  canvass  of  1832,  they  made  of 
him  on  this  occasion,  as  before,  a  choice  of  evils. 

In  1829,  while  Senator,  Mr.  Tyler  was  elected  a  member  of 
the  famous  Virginia  Constitutional  Convention  of  1829-1830, 
an  assembly  of  which  Mr.  Ritchie  wrote  in  his  preface  to  its 
debates,  and  before  many  of  its  younger  members  had  achieved 
their  subsequent  fame,  that  ''some  have  held  it  equal  to  the 
celebrated  convention  which  met  in  Virginia  in  the  year  1788 
to  pass  upon  the  Federal  Constitution,"  and  which  numbered 
in  its  membership  of  ninety-six,  two  ex-Presidents  of  the 
Union,  the  Chief  Justice,  and  many  men  already  distinguished 
on  the  bench  and  at  the  bar,  and  included  others  who  were  then 
yet  to  become  presidents,  senators,  governors,  members  of 
presidential  cabinets,  ministers  abroad,  and  members  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States. 

He  returned  from  this  body  to  his  seat  in  the  Senate,  and 
found  a  further  predilection  for  President  Jackson  in  the  lat- 
ter's  veto  of  the  Maysville  Turnpike  Bill  in  1830.  But  Jack 
son's  antagonism  to  internal  improvements  was  only  directed 
against  roads  and  did  not  apply  to  water  courses,  and  what  was 
regarded  by  the  strict  obstructionists  as  his  unconstitutional 
usurpation  of  executive  powers  in  favoring  appropriations  for 
rivers  and  harbors,  in  making  partisan  removals,  in  approving 
the  protective  tariff  of  1832,  and  in  removing  the  deposits  from 
the  United  States  Bank,  resulted  in  the  complete  alienation  of 
the  Crawford  men. 


-'4 


Out  of  the  political  conflicts  of  the  period  emerged  ''the 
tariff  of  abominations"  of  1828,  and  the  protective  tariff  of 
1832,  carried  through  Congress  by  J.  Q.  Adams  "in  perfect 
concert  with  the  administration"  *  and  the  "Bloody  Force 
Bill,"  in  1833.  To  all  of  these  measures  Mr.  Tyler  was  alike 
opposed.  And  while  he  did  not  favor  nullification  as  a  remedy 
for  the  tariff,  he  denounced  Jackson's  famous  proclamation  of 
December  10,  1832,  against  South  Carolina  as  "sweeping  away 
all  the  barriers  of  the  Constitution,"  and  as  in  effect  "establish 
ing  a  consolidated  military  despotism." 

Jackson,  with  relentless  determination,  pursued  his  dic 
tatorial  way.  A  prominent  congressman  of  Virginia,  who 
said  to  him  that  he  had  been  his  friend  and  supporter  when  he 
was  right,  but  could  not  go  with  him  when  he  was  wrong,  was 
met  by  the  characteristic  reply  from  the  President  that  he  did 
not  care  for  the  kind  of  friend  and  supporter  who  would  stand 
by  him  only  when  he  was  right,  but  that  the  friends  he  desired 
were  those  who  would  stand  by  him  when  he  was  wrong. 

Mr.  Tyler,  while  opposed  to  the  tariff,  which  on  the  admis 
sion  of  Mr.  Dickerson,  of  New  Jersey,  made  on  the  floor  of 
the  Senate,  annually  transferred  from  the  South  to  the  North 
$12,000,000,  did  not,  as  already  stated,  favor  nullification;  but 
when  the  ballot  was  taken  on  the  Force  Bill,  investing  the 
President  with  extraordinary  powers  to  enforce  the  obnoxious 
tariff,  and  when  all  the  rest  of  the  opposition  left  their  seats, 
he  remained,  and  his  was  the  sole  vote  in  the  Senate  recorded 
against  it  on  its  passage. 

However,  the  danger  of  war  and  the  almost  certain  at 
tempted  destruction  of  the  Union  that  was  threatened  by  the 
Force  Bill  were  obviated  by  the  Compromise  Tariff  Bill  which 
Mr.  Clay  introduced  into  the  Senate;  and  this  bill  in  all  re 
spects  was  the  work  of  Mr.  Tyler.  He  suggested  the  details  to 
Mr.  Clay,  prevailed  upon  him  to  offer  it,  and  brought  about  a 


*Niles,  Register,  LXIII,  p.  172. 

25 


meeting  of  Mr.  Clay  with  Mr.  Calhoun,  who  agreed  to  support 
it.*  Thus  the  Union  was  saved;  for  a  blow  struck  at  South 
Carolina  at  this  time  would  have  united  the  whole  South,  as  it 
did  in  1861,  when  that  section  was  relatively  much  weaker. 
While  the  Force  Bill  was  pending,  Mr.  Tyler's  term  expired, 
and  his  re-election  was  contested  by  the  able  James  McDowell, 
of  Rockbridge,  who  was,  however,  defeated  by  him. 

The  excitement  over  these  events  had  scarcely  subsided, 
when  the  passions  of  men  were  rekindled  by  Jackson's  removal 
of  the  Federal  deposits  from  the  United  States  Bank.  The  Vir 
ginia  Legislature,  which  until  Jackson's  proclamation  in  De 
cember,  1832,  had  supported  his  administration,  was  in  opposi 
tion,  and  her  delegation  in  Congress  with  practical  unanimity 
determined  in  caucus  in  favor  of  the  restoration  of  the  deposits 
to  the  bank,  while  public  opinion  in  the  State  became  over 
whelmingly  anti-Jackson.  In  rebuke  of  the  President's  as 
sumptions  and  arrogations  to  himself  of  what  they  deemed  a 
violation  of  the  law,  Mr.  Tyler  and  Mr.  Clay  worked  enthu 
siastically  with  Mr.  Calhoun  and  Mr.  Webster  in  behalf  of  the 
Senate  resolution  of  censure,  which  was  adopted. 

Then  came  the  determined  effort  of  Thomas  H.  Benton  to 
have  this  censure  expunged  from  the  journal  of  the  Senate. 
Virginia  experienced  another  change  of  sentiment,  and  turned 
Jacksonian;  and  Mr.  Tyler  was  instructed  in  1836  to  vote  for 
the  expunction.  He  declined,  and  resigned  from  the  Senate, 
having  been  honored  by  election  as  President  pro  tem  of  that 
body  at  the  close  of  the  session  of  1834-1835. 

Out  of  the  ruck  and  turmoil  of  it  all  grew  a  great  coalition 
of  many  men  of  many  minds,  that  became  the  National  Whig 
Party.  Its  parents  were  the  anti-tariff  men  and  strict  con- 
structionists  largely  located  in  the  South,  and  Mr.  Clay's  Na 
tional  Republican  Party  who  believed  in  the  American  System. 


*  See  Mr.  Tyler's  letter  to  John  Floyd  in  William  and  Mary  Quar 
terly  Magazine,  XXI,  8-10;  and  Letters  and  Times  of  the  Tylers,  I,  456-460: 
466-67. 

26 


An  analysis  of  the  Presidential  votes  in  the  years  1836  and 
1840  demonstrates  that  the  Southern  Whigs  were  drawn  from 
the  old  Crawford  element  of  the  Democratic-Republican  Party. 
Gathered  about  this  formidable  alliance  were  others  who 
had  been  nullifiers,  and  others  who  had  been  protectionists; 
while  the  anti-Masonic  Party,  that  had  grown  up  about  the 
historic  Masonic  episode  of  Morgan,  formed  the  rearguard  of 
the  potential  though  incongrous  phalanx. 

Thus,  while  some  members  of  the  new  National  Whig 
Party  originally  favored  a  protective  tariff,  others  had  fiercely 
opposed  it ;  some  had  been  for  a  United  States  Bank,  and  others 
against  a  bank  of  any  kind ;  some  had  favored  internal  improve 
ments  by  the  national  government,  and  others  had  opposed,  on 
the  ground  of  unconstitutionally ;  and  there  were  also  some 
who  continued  Nullifiers  in  the  expectation  of  a  future  success 
ful  revival  of  the  doctrine. 

The  generic  appellation  of  "Whig"  embraced  all  the  hetero- 
genous  elements  thus  united,  and  their  real  single  bond  of 
union  was  opposition  to  Jackson  and  the  Jacksonian  democracy. 
It  was  some  years  before  the  Whig  Party  attempted  a  formula 
tion  of  principles  and  policies,  for  the  obvious  reason  that  in 
such  an  association  there  could  be  no  agreement  in  any  other 
thing  than  the  one  thing  of  making  common  cause  against 
executive  usurpation. 

In  the  election  of  1836  no  common  Presidential  candidate 
could  be  agreed  upon  by  the  W'higs.  William  Henry  Harrison 
was  the  favorite  candidate  of  the  National  Republican  Whigs 
of  the  North,  and  Hugh  L.  White  was  the  favorite  of  the 
State-Rights  Whigs  of  the  South ;  but  the  Massachusetts 
Whigs  voted  for  Webster,  and  the  South  Carolina  Whigs  voted 
for  Willie  P.  Mangum.  Mr.  Tyler  was  placed  upon  the  White 
ticket  for  Vice-President,  and  in  several  States  upon  the  Har 
rison  ticket,  but  most  of  the  Northern  States  supported  Francis 
Granger.  Under  these  circumstances,  the  Democrats  had  an 

27 


easy  victory,  and  no  one  of  the  Whig  candidates  was  elected. 
"The  double-shotted  ticket  killed  us,"  wrote  Mr.  Tyler  to  Mr. 
Wise,  after  the  election. 

In  1838,  Mr.  Tyler  was  again  sent  to  the  State  Legislature, 
and,  as  the  martyr  to  the  expunging  resolution,  was  at  once 
placed  by  his  friends  in  nomination  for  the  United  States 
Senate,  but  a  small  faction  calling  themselves  "Conservatives," 
led  by  William  C.  Rives,  who,  because  of  the  Independent 
Treasury  measure  favored  by  Mr.  Van  Buren,  had  severed 
relations  with  the  Democratic  Party,  held  the  balance  of  power 
between  the  Whigs  and  Democrats  and  prevented  his  election. 
An  intrigue  set  on  foot  by  Mr.  Clay,  by  which  the  majority  of 
the  Whig  vote  was  finally  cast  for  Mr.  Rives,  wras  in  turn  de 
feated  by  Mr.  Tyler's  particular  friends,  who  were  indignant 
at  what  they  termed  his  betrayal  by  Mr.  Clay,  and  the  Legisla 
ture  adjourned  without  any  election  at  this  time. 

Before  it  could  reassemble  the  great  Whig  National  Con 
vention  assembled  at  Harrisburg,  Pa.,  December  4,  1839, 
and  nominated  the  party's  first  successful  ticket,  Harrison  and 
Tyler,  which  was  elected  in  the  following  year.  The  party 
made  its  nomination  with  a  view  to  the  success  which  it 
achieved,  but,  as  is  most  significant,  it  promulgated  no  plat 
form. 

In  the  light  of  this  anomalous  fact,  and  of  the  former  irre 
concilable  political  ideas  and  interests  of  the  various  factions 
from  which  it  sprung,  are  to  be  read  the  accusations  that  were 
made  against  Mr.  Tyler  by  his  enemies,  wrhen  after  the  death 
of  General  Harrison  he  succeeded  to  the  office  of  President, 
April  4,  1841.  To  all  such  accusations  of  his  having  deserted 
Whig  principles  and  the  Whig  Party  during  his  administration 
it  may  be  answered  that  his  light  had  shone  always  as  a  beacon 
on  a  hill ;  that  he  was  known  of  all  men  throughout  his  political 
career  to  have  been  a  strict  constructionist  and  State-Rights 
advocate ;  that  he  was  bound  by  no  pledge  of  political  doctrine, 

28 


written  or  unwritten,  to  the  incongruous  party  that  elected 
him ;  and  that  he  discharged  the  duties  of  his  high  office  in  the 
loftiest  spirit  of  patriotism,  and  according  to  the  profound  and 
mature  convictions  that  he  had  always  entertained  in  regard 
to  constitutional  government. 

During  the  Presidential  canvass  of  1840,  the  course  of  the 
Whig  orators  in  the  North  was  to  talk  loudly  of  "reform," 
and  to  say  nothing  of  the  old  issues  of  bank,  tariff,  and  internal 
improvements.  In  the  South,  where  the  Whig  constituencies 
were  practically  all  for  State-Rights,  they  were  strong  in  their 
professions  against  these  measures.  And  Mr.  Clay's  position 
was  that  all  the  old  issues  had  become  "obsolete"  in  the  pres 
ence  of  the  Federalism  of  the  Jackson- Van  Buren  Democracy. 
Indeed,  in  a  speech  made  in  the  Senate  in  September,  1841, 
Mr.  Buchanan  declared  that  "during  the  whole  election  cam 
paign  of  1840  he  never  saw  one  single  resolution  in  favor  of  a 
national  bank,  which  had  been  passed  by  any  Whig  meeting  in 
any  part  of  the  country."  * 

It  is  a  notable  fact  that  in  this  canvass  Mr.  Clay  and  many 
other  prominent  Whigs  expressed  in  their  speeches  the  very 
views  which  Mr.  Tyler  put  into  concrete  effect  in  his  vetoes  of 
the  bank-bills  and  of  the  tariff-bills,  and  it  was  for  the  first  time, 
upon  his  veto  of  the  Fiscal  Corporation  Bill,  that  the  Whig 
members  of  Congress  put  forth,  in  their  "Address  to  the  Peo 
ple,"  a  written  declaration  of  what  purported  to  be  Whig  pur 
poses  and  policies ;  and  declaring  that  the  President  had  im 
periled  these  Whig  measures,  proclaimed  that  "all  political 
connection  between  them  and  John  Tyler  was  at  an  end."  This 
pronunciamento  may  be  attributed  solely  to  the  party  domi 
nance  of  Mr.  Clay  and  of  the  Northern  National  Republican 
Whig  influence  in  Congress. 


*  The  Whig  Party  in  the  South,  A.  C.  Cole  (American  Historical 
Association,  Washington,  1913),  pages  29,  30,  and  seq.,  and  authorities 
cited.  Speech  of  Mr.  Buchanan  in  Congressional  Globe,  appendix  to  Vol. 
X,  p.  343- 

29 


Mr.  Tyler  took  over  the  Harrison  Cabinet,  and  soon  was 
called  to  confront  the  currency  question.  He  had  no  confidence 
in  any  mere  bank  at  this  time  as  a  remedy  for  the  financial 
troubles  in  the  country,  but  he  naturally  desired  to  gratify 
the  Whig  leaders  if  possible.  As  he  did  not  believe  that  Con 
gress  had  power  to  create  corporations  in  the  States,  he  gave 
his  Cabinet  to  understand  that  he  would  approve  any  bank  for 
the  District  of  Columbia,  if  accepted  and  established  in  good 
faith  by  the  Whigs.  Accordingly,  Thomas  Ewing,  the  Secre 
tary  of  the  Treasury,  drew  a  bank  bill  for  the  District,  which, 
though  it  contained  features  of  local  discounting  that  were 
objectionable  to  Mr.  Tyler,  had  nothing  actually  unconstitu 
tional  about  it.  But  when  this  bill,  which  was  known  as  a 
measure  to  establish  the  Fiscal  Bank  of  the  United  States,  was 
proposed  in  Congress,  Mr.  Clay  moved  to  substitute  for  the 
clause  requiring  the  assent  of  the  States  to  the  creation  of 
branches  another  clause  authorizing  the  bank  to  establish 
branches  without  the  consent  of  the  States.  The  bill  passed 
Congress  and  was  vetoed  by  the  President,  and  Mr.  Ewing 
admitted  that  "the  veto  was  in  conformity  with  the  President's 
opinions  pertinaciously  adhered  to  in  all  his  conversations." 

The  attempt  then  was  made  to  prepare  another  bill  for  what 
became  known  as  the  Fiscal  Corporation  of  the  United  States, 
and  on  August  18,  1841,  the  President  discussed  its  principal 
outlines  in  Cabinet.  There  was  no  written  bill  before  them. 
At  this  meeting  he  authorized  two  of  the  Cabinet  officers,  Mr. 
Ewing  and  Mr.  Webster,  to  confer  with  Messrs.  Sergeant  and 
Berrien,  who  represented  the  Whigs  in  the  House  of  Represent 
atives,  about  putting  the  bill  in  shape  for  Congress.  Looking 
for  ground  to  justify  their  desertion  of  the  President,  Ewing 
and  two  other  members  of  the  Cabinet  afterwards  asserted  in 
their  letters  of  resignation  that  this  bill  was  drawn  to  conform 
to  the  President's  ideas  as  outlined  to  them,  and  that  he  acted 
in  bad  faith  in  vetoing  it  —  a  charge  that  has  been  frequently 

30 


repeated  in  partisan  works.     The  baseless  character  of  the 
charge  is  shown  from  a  statement  of  the  facts. 

No  evidence  was  ever  produced  that  Mr.  Tyler  saw  the  bill 
before  its  introduction  in  Congress,  though  Mr.  •  Ewing  said 
that  he  "heard"  that  he  had  both  seen  and  approved  it.  He 
afterwards  gave  the  name  of  Mr.  Webster  as  his  informant. 
But  Webster,  though  thus  publicly  mentioned,  never  substan 
tiated  him;  but,  on  the  contrary,  declared  in  a  published  letter 
that  "he  had  seen  no  sufficient  reason  for  the  dissolution  of  the 
late  Cabinet  by  the  voluntary  act  of  its  members."  On  the 
other  hand,  there  is  the  emphatic  denial  of  the  President  that  he 
ever  saw  the  bill  till  it  appeared  in  Congress,  and  when  told  of 
its  defects  he  tried  in  every  way  to  have  it  properly  amended. 
His  memorable  words  were :  'T  declare  under  all  the  solemn 
ities  that  can  attend  such  a  declaration,  that  my  consent  to  that 
bill  was  never  obtained." 

Neither  is  there  any  pretense  of  proof  that  Mr.  Tyler  was 
in  any  way  committed  to  Congress  or  to  any  of  its  members  in 
favor  of  the  bill,  for  the  Cabinet  members  admitted  that  Ewing 
and  Webster  had  been  cautioned  by  the  President  at  the  Cabi 
net  meeting  "not  to  commit  him"  in  their  dealings  with  Messrs. 
Sergeant  and  Berrien.  But  the  distinction  is  taken  that  the 
President,  though  not  committed  to  any  one  in  Congress,  was 
committed  to  his  Cabinet  as  favoring  the  measure.  Such  a 
notion  of  the  relations  of  a  President  to  his  Cabinet  would 
seem  to  be  a  novel  one.  A  President's  advisers  are  supposed 
to  be  a  part  of  the  President's  official  identity,  and  one  of  the 
chief  objects  of  a  Cabinet  meeting  is  to  discuss  matters  with 
a  view  to  maturing  opinions.  The  acceptance  of  the  idea  that  a 
President  in  Cabinet  council  must  be  held  committed  to  any 
chance  expression  he  might  there  let  fall  would  be  destructive 
of  all  confidence  between  him  and  his  Cabinet  members. 

In  this  case  the  letters  of  resignation  contain  in  themselves 
alone  the  strongest  evidence  that  the  President  never  for  a 

31 


moment  committed  his  conscience  to  any  man's  keeping.  Ac 
cording  to  the  letter  of  resignation  of  John  Bell,  the  Secretary 
of  War,  the  President  at  the  Cabinet  meeting  expressed  "a 
wish  to  see  the  bill  before  it  was  presented  to  the  House,  if  it 
could  be  so  managed."  Why  should  he  have  made  this  demand, 
if  he  had  parted  with  his  control  over  the  bill?  He  told  Mr. 
Webster  and  Mr.  Ewing  that  they  might  express  to  the  Whig 
Committee  "their  confidence  and  belief  that  such  a  bill  as  had 
just  been  agreed  upon  would  receive  his  sanction,  but  it  should 
be  a  matter  of  inference  from  his  veto  message  and  his  general 
views."  What  could  he  mean  by  this,  except  that  he  wanted  to 
be  consistent  with  his  action  in  the  Fiscal  Bank  Bill,  and  that 
he  reserved  the  right  of  final  judgment?  How  Webster  re 
garded  the  matter  is  shown  by  his  note  of  August  2Oth,  to  the 
President,  written  after  talking  with  Sergeant  and  Berrien,  to 
whom  he  had  gone  in  pursuance  of  the  understanding  at  the 
Cabinet  meeting :  "I  have  done  or  said  nothing  as  from  you  or 
by  your  authority  or  implicating  you  in  the  slightest  degree. 
If  any  measure  pass,  you  will  be  perfectly  free  to  exercise  your 
constitutional  power  wholly  uncommitted,  except  so  far  as  may 
be  gathered  from  your  public  and  official  acts."  This  letter  can 
not  be  reasonably  regarded  as  consistent  with  the  thought  that 
the  President  in  conscience  was  bound  in  any  way  to  his  Cabi 
net  on  the  Fiscal  Corporation  Bill. 

The  President  himself  shows  that  the  principle  of  the  Fis 
cal  Corporation  was  as  objectionable  as  the  principle  of  the 
bill  just  vetoed.  It  was  not  reconcilable  with  his  late  veto 
or  his  other  official  acts.  The  Fiscal  Corporation  was  a  cor 
poration  created  by  Congress  in  its  national  character,  and  not 
a  local  bank  of  the  District  of  Columbia  created  by  Congress  in 
its  character  as  the  local  legislature  of  the  District.  It  dealt 
ostensibly  in  exchanges,  but  admitted  a  system  of  local  dis 
counts,  which  he  had  condemned  in  his  late  veto  message  and 
at  the  Cabinet  meeting.  But  whether  a  bank  of  local  discount 

32 


or  an  exchange  bank,  it  lacked  the  fundamental   feature  of 
State  assent  as  to  branches. 

Mr.  Tyler  states  that  he  had  suggested  to  the  Cabinet  not 
a  national  bank,  but  a  local  bank  of  the  District  of  Columbia 
without  the  discounting  power  of  the  Fiscal  Bank  Bill,  either 
in  its  original  shape  as  fashioned  by  Mr.  Ewing,  or  as  amended 
by  Mr.  Clay,  and  one  confined  to  dealing  in  foreign  exchanges. 
So  far  as  the  right  of  a  local  bank  to  deal  in  foreign  exchanges 
was  concerned,  Mr.  Tyler  looked  to  the  decision  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  in  the  case  of  Bank  of 
Augusta  vs.  Earle  (13  Peters'  Reports,  510),  which  settled  the 
principle  that  a  bank  of  one  sovereign  country  authorized  to 
deal  in  exchanges  might,  by  the  comity  of  nations,  establish 
agencies  or  branches  for  that  purpose  in  another  sovereign  and 
independent  country  unless  prohibited  by  its  laws  from  so 
doing. 

Such  was  the  purport  of  his  suggestions  at  the  Cabinet 
meeting,  and  Mr.  Tyler's  account*  of  the  matter  tallies  with 
the  statement  of  one  of  the  Whigs,  Mr.  A.  H.  H.  Stuart,  of 
Virginia,  who  admits  that  on  August  i6th,  two  days  before 
the  Cabinet  met,  he  brought  a  paper  containing  the  clause  in 
regard  to  branches  to  the  President,  who  wrote  upon  the  mar 
gin  an  amendment  to  meet  the  case  in  point.  Under  it  the 
consent  to  branches  might  be  taken  as  implied  until  forbidden 
by  the  State.  This  amendment  differed  in  operation,  but  not 
in  principle  from  the  original  requirement  as  to  branches  in 
Ewing's  Bill.  The  difference  in  operation,  occasioned  by  re 
stricting  the  bill  to  exchanges,  was  a  distinction  founded  on 
the  law  of  nations,  which  law  is  itself  founded  on  the  consent 
of  States ;  but  the  plan  gave  opportunity  for  the  bank  to  estab 
lish  branches  more  freely,  and  for  this  reason  Mr.  Tyler  hoped 
that  it  would  be  pleasing  to  the  Whig  majority.  Yet  the 
Whigs  seized  upon  Mr.  Tyler's  patriotic  overture  as  an  abso- 


*  For  Mr.  Tyler's  own  clear  and  conclusive  account  of  the  Bank  bills, 
see  Letters  and  Times  of  the  Tylers,  II,  66-70 ;  98-102. 

33 


lute  surrender,  and  the  Fiscal  Corporation  bill  appeared  in 
Congress  without  any  limitation  on  the  establishment  of 
branches.  Mr.  Tyler  tried  to  have  the  bill  amended,  and  failing 
to  effect  this  tried  to  have  it  postponed,  but  the  Whigs,  bent 
upon  making  an  issue  with  Mr.  Tyler  before  the  people,  ruth 
lessly  pushed  the  measure,  just  as  it  was,  to  its  passage.  A 
second  veto  followed;  all  the  Cabinet  resigned  except  Mr.  Web 
ster,  and  the  pronunciamento  mentioned  was  issued.  After 
all,  the  question  between  Mr.  Tyler  and  the  Whigs  was  not  a 
mere  one  of  bank  and  no  bank,  but  the  old  one  of  centraliza 
tion  of  power  in  Congress  and  State-Rights,  of  a  consolidated 
nation  and  a  confederated  republic. 

Despite  the  decadence  of  State-Rights,  the  fact  enduring  to 
this  day  is  that  Mr.  Tyler  saved  the  country  from  a  vast 
moneyed  trust,  and  Carl  Schurz  declares*  that  "the  verdict  of 
impartial  history  will  probably  be  that  John  Tyler  by  prevent 
ing  by  his  veto  the  incorporation  of  another  United  States  Bank 
rendered  his  country  a  valuable  service."  The  plan  of  a  United 
States  Bank  in  the  old  sense  of  the  word,  as  a  single  gigantic 
private  corporation,  owning  numerous  affiliated  banks  in  all 
the  States  and  made  the  depositary  and  beneficiary  of  all  the 
moneys  of  the  government,  may  safely  be  said  to  be  a  discarded 
thing  forever. 

Mr.  Tyler,  during  the  next  two  years,  while  the  Whigs  had 
a  majority  in  Congress,  received  but  slight  support  from  that 
party,  and  was  in  little  better  case  with  the  Democratic  ma 
jority,  dominated  by  the  Van  Buren  influence,  when  that  party 
succeeded  in  legislative  superiority.  He  relied  upon  the  wings 
of  either  party,  who  were,  as  he  had  always  been,  the  support 
ers  of  State-Rights.  After  the  resignation  of  the  Harrison 
appointees,  with  the  exception  of  Mr.  Webster,  who  did  not 
approve  the  conduct  of  the  Whigs  and  ever  remained  the  Presi 
dent's  warm  personal  friend,  he  filled  his  Cabinet  with  State- 


*  Schurz,  Henry  Clay,  II,  209  (American  Statesmen  Series}. 

34 


Rights  Whigs,  who,  like  himself,  had  voted  for  Harrison,  and 
two  years  later  he  included  in  it  several  State-Rights  Demo 
crats  who  were  opposed  to  Van  Buren. 

The  steadiness  with  which  he  met  these  varying  conditions 
was  matched  by  his  firmness  in  sustaining  the  full  dignity  of 
his  position.  He  did  not  regard  himself  as  President  by  "acci 
dent,"  or  "chance,"  or  as  "a  Vice-President  acting  as  Presi 
dent,"  but  as  President  by  election  and  by  the  constitution. 
As  such  he  was  recognized  by  both  Houses  of  Congress.  Nor, 
in  his  opinion,  simply  because  his  active  functions  were  depend 
ent  upon  the  death  of  President  Harrison,  did  that  event,  to 
use  the  slang  phrase  of  the  Whigs,  make  him  an  "accidental 
President"  any  more  than  was  the  then  Queen  of  England. 
Victoria,  an  accidental  monarch,  because  her  accession  to  the 
throne  had  been  contingent  on  the  death  of  her  uncle,  William 
IV.  According  to  the  constitution,  when  the  Vice-President 
is  elected,  it  is  for  the  very  purpose  of  his  succeeding  to  the 
office  of  President,  and  there  is  no  room  for  "chance";  or  as 
Caleb  dishing,  the  eminent  lawyer  of  Massachusetts,  expressed 
it,  the  Vice-President's  succession  is  a  "fixed  fact"  by  the 
constitution.  By  his  determined  and  fortunate  stand  he  pre 
served  the  executive  from  a  deplorable  loss  of  power  and 
authority,  and  established  the  precedent  that  has  been  followed 
to  this  day. 

In  place  of  the  vetoed  bank  bills,  which  his  opponents  vainly 
sought  to  pass  over  his  veto,  he  drafted  as  a  substitute  the 
Exchequer  Bill,  which  was  declared*  by  Mr.  Webster  in  its 
significance  and  importance  to  be  only  inferior  to  the  Fed 
eral  Constitution  itself,  and  which  in  its  character  as  a  govern 
ment  measure,  with  a  board  of  control  under  the  supervision 
of  the  Treasury  Department,  and  in  its  provisions  to  issue 
government  notes  and  receive  deposits,  was  a  prototypef  of 


*  In  his  Faneiiil  Hall  speech,  September  30,  1842. 
t  The   connection   was   noted   by   Senator   N.   W.   Aldrich,    of   Rhode 
Island,  in  a  recent  speech. 

35 


the  recently-enacted  Federal  Reserve  Act.  When  partisan 
politics  occasioned  the  rejection  of  the  exchequer  by  Congress, 
President  Tyler,  for  the  remainder  of  his  administration,  had 
the  moneys  of  the  government  in  what  was  practically  his  own 
private  keeping,  and  the  country  lost  not  one  dollar. 

After  the  currency  question  was  disposed  of,  he  had  to  con 
front,  in  1842,  the  equally  important,  if  not  more  important, 
one  of  the  revenue.  He  inherited  a  bankrupt  treasury,  which 
necessitated  a  public  loan  and  a  revision  of  the  compromise 
tariff  of  1833;  and  for  floating  the  loan  successfully  he  wished 
to  pledge  the  net  proceeds  of  the  sales  of  the  public  lands1. 
But  the  Whig  Congress,  under  the  leadership  of  Mr.  Clay, 
insisted  on  giving  this  only  immediately  reliable  fund  to  the 
States,  and  attached  a  rider  for  this  purpose  to  the  new  tariff 
bill,  thus  uniting  in  the  same  measure  two  diametrically  op 
posite  things  —  one  having  for  its'  object  putting  money  in, 
and  the  other,  taking  money  from,  the  treasury.  To  effect  a 
separation  the  President  had  to  resort,  as  in  the  bank  affair,  to 
two  vetoes ;  and  at  length  Congress  passed,  unencumbered  with 
the  rider,  the  Whig  tariff  of  1842,  which,  despite  some  objec 
tionable  protective  features,  the  President  approved  as  a  reve 
nue  measure  demanded  by  the  exigencies  of  the  treasury.  Nor 
did  it  disappoint  his  expectations,  as  it  speedily  filled  the  empty 
treasury  to  overflowing. 

The  disapproval  of  the  people  of  the  conduct  of  the  Whigs 
was  registered  in  the  fall  elections  of  1842.  The  Whig  Party 
was  swept  from  power,  and  two  years  later,  when  Mr.  Clay 
was  the  Whig  candidate  for  the  Presidency,  he  was  defeated. 

The  confusion  and  clamor  of  these  earlier  political  strug 
gles  have  long  since  passed  away,  and  in  the  retrospective  of 
history  men  have  come  to  see  clearly  the  truths  that  have 
emerged  from  them.  Of  these  truths  there  is  now  none  more 
salient  and  conspicuous  than  that  those  who  charged  Mr. 
Tyler  with  recreancy  to  the  Whig  Party  and  its  principles  bore 
false  witness  against  him.  As  has  been  said  of  him :  "It  was 

36 


impossible  in  the  nature  of  things  for  a  party  composed  of  so 
many  discordant  and  opposing  elements  to  have  any  well- 
defined  principles  or  determinate  policy;  and  it  was  perfectly 
understood  in  the  Harrisburg  Convention,  which  nominated 
Harrison  and  Tyler,  that  Mr.  Tyler  was  put  on  the  ticket,  as 
well  on  account  of  his  great  popularity  throughout  the 
country,  as  for  his  well-known  anti-bank,  anti-tariff,  strict 
constructionist,  State-Rights  and  anti-internal  improvement 
views  and  principles."  As  General  Wise  truly  says :  "He  did 
not  commit  himself  to  a  Federal  party  or  Federal  opinions 
by  accepting  the  nomination,  but  the  Whig  Party  committed 
itself  to  Democratic  principles,  and  selected  a  Democrat  to 
guard  them/' 

At  the  time  of  the  accession  of  Mr.  Tyler  to  the  Presidency, 
the  diplomacy  of  England  apparently  contemplated  an  absorp 
tion  of  that  section  of  the  American  Continent,  that  lay  west 
of  the  Mississippi  River  —  a  territory  which  comprised  Texas, 
Colorado,  Xew  Mexico,  Arizona,  Idaho,  Montana,  Wyoming, 
Nevada,  California,  Oregon,  and  Washington  —  and  which 
was  claimed  by  Mexico,  but  uncontrolled  by  her  authority. 
From  this  situation  grew  the  Ashburton  Treaty  with  Great 
Britain,  negotiated,  as  Mr.  Webster  himself  says  :*  "From  step 
to  step  and  from  day  to  day  under  the  President's  own  imme 
diate  supervision  and  direction,"  everything  being  first  agreed 
upon  in  informal  conferences  and  afterwards  reduced  to  writ 
ing  and  submitted  to  him  for  his  final  corrections.'!'  And  out 
of  the  same  conditions  also  grew  his  successful  procurement 
of  the  independence  of  the  Sandwich  Islands,  now  an  important 
dependency  of  the  United  States.  Mr.  Tyler  applied  the  Mon 
roe  Doctrine  to  these  islands  as  part  of  this  continent,  and  thus 
in  being  the  first  president  to  reach  out  to  them  the  protecting 
arm  of  this  government  led  the  way  to  their  ultimate  acquisi 
tion  under  President  McKinley. 

*  Daniel  Webster  to  Lewis  Cass   (Xiles.  Register,  LXIV,  p.  79). 
t  Letters  and  Times  of  the  Tylers,  II,  242;  III,  205-206 

37 


But  the  most  far  reaching  question  of  this  diplomacy  of 
Great  Britain  and  the  United  States  related  to  Texas  and 
California.  As  early  as  1841,  Mr.  Tyler  had  pointed  out  to 
Mr.  Webster  the  significance  to  the  United  States  of  the  ulti 
mate  acquisition  of  Texas',  and  this  idea  continued  persistently 
with  him,  until  its  consummation  was  finally  achieved  and  the 
joint  resolution  of  the  two  Houses  of  Congress  providing  for 
annexation  was  adopted  and  signed  by  him  on  the  last  day  of 
his  term  of  office.  That  this  great  purpose  was  very  near  his 
heart,  and  that  its  ultimate  accomplishment  afforded  him  much 
satisfaction  is  indicated  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Alexander  Gardiner, 
in  which  he  wrote,  on  the  eve  of  his  retirement  from  the  presi 
dency:  "We  shall  leave  the  government  and  country  sound 
and  prosperous;  and  if  the  annexation  of  Texas  shall  crown 
off  my  public  life,  I  shall  neither  retire  ignominiously,  nor  be 
soon  forgotten." 

Whatever  the  views  of  other  Southern  men,  he  took  from 
the  first,  as  to  Texas',  the  broad  ground  of  the  national  good  — 
the  monopoly  of  the  cotton  plant,  the  growth  of  the  coastwise 
and  foreign  traffic,  and  the  extension  of  the  national  domain. 
And  that  in  all  the  manifold  circumstances  whch  marked  the 
development  and  accomplishment  of  the  great  measure  of  an 
nexation  his  motives  and  conduct  were  of  a  high  and  noble 
character  is  confirmed  by  Dr.  Justin  H.  Smith,  of  Boston,  who, 
in  his  recent  work,  "The  Annexation  of  Texas"  (1911),  has 
subjected  the  whole  question  to  the  most  thorough  and  pains 
taking  investigation.  In  his  summary  of  the  actions  and  mo 
tives  of  men,  North  and  South,  both  for  and  against  the  meas 
ure,  Dr.  Smith  declares  that  "among  the  leaders,  Tyler,  the 
unpopular,  comes  out  rather  the  best,  as  so  often  occurs  when 
conduct  and  principles  are  closely  examined."  By  resorting  to 
joint  resolutions  of  Congress  for  the  annexation  of  Texas,  he 
again  furnished  a  precedent  to  our  own  times.  Although  this 
method  of  annexation  was  strongly  denounced  as  unconstitu 
tional,  especially  in  the  North,  it  was  later  resorted  to  by  Mr. 

38 


McKinley,  a  Northern  President,  in  effecting  the  annexation 
of  the  Sandwich  or  Hawaiian  Islands. 

Among  the  other  achievements  of  his  administration  were 
the  suppression  of  Dorr's  Insurrection  in  Rhode  Island,  the 
settlement  of  the  difficulties  with  Great  Britain  in  the  cases  of 
the  Caroline  and  Creole,  the  reduction  of  the  Danish  Sound 
dues  (the  first  reduction  ever  made  of  the  Danish  tariff  of 
1696),  and  the  conclusion  of  the  Seminole  War  in  Florida ;  and 
of  the  unfinished  measures  turned  over  to  Mr.  Polk,  his  suc 
cessor,  were  the  Oregon  boundary  and  the  acquisition  of  Cali 
fornia  and  New  Mexico,  wrhich  questions,  by  a  brilliant  stroke 
of  diplomacy,  he  sought  informally  to  join  under  a  tripartite 
arrangement  between  Great  Britain,  Mexico,  and  the  United 
States,*  and  the  successful  conclusion  of  which,  had  his  term 
of  office  permitted  it,  might  have  saved  the  country  from  the 
war  with  Mexico,  and  from  the  consequent  struggles  over 
slavery.  As  to  his  treatment  of  the  Rhode  Island  question,  Mr. 
Webster  asserted  that  "it  was  worthy  of  all  praise  and  one  of 
the  most  fortunate  incidents  in  your  (Tyler's)  administration 
for  your  own  reputation." 

Great  as  was  his  constructive  statesmanship  in  his  "Ex 
chequer"  proposition,  in  his  diplomacy  as  illustrated  in  the 
treaties  negotiated  with  Great  Britain  and  with  China,  f  and  in 
his  acquisition  to  the  Union  of  the  imperial  domain  of  Texas, 
it  is  no  less  creditable  to  his  administrative  capacity  and  ex 
perience  that  he  could  truthfully  proclaim  as  he  wrote  to  Mr. 
Gardiner,  ''that  he  left  the  government  sound  and  prosperous." 
When  his  term  expired,  there  was  a  balance  in  the  Federal 
Treasury  of  eight  millions  of  dollars;  and  it  is  said  that  but  one 
defaulter  had  been  discovered  during  his  Presidential  term, 


*  Letters  and  Times  of  the  Tylers,  II,  260,  447-449,  692;  III,  176,  (Let 
ter  of  Ben.  E.  Green). 

t  It  is  not  generally  known  that  when  Mr.  Gushing  was  sent  to  China, 
he  was  given  authority  to  treat  also  with  Japan.  See  Letter  of  Mr.  Tyler 
in  Letters  and  Times  of  the  Tylers,  II,  200-201. 

39 


and  he  for  the  paltry  sum  of  fifteen  dollars;  while  the  expenses 
of  government  were  reduced  one-fourth,  as  compared  with 
those  of  the  preceding  administration.  Mr.  Webster  paid  him 
the  tribute  of  saying:*  "that  in  all  things  respecting  the  ex 
penditures  of  the  public  moneys  he  was  remarkably  cautious, 
exact  and  particular." 

And  yet  no  public  interest  was  neglected.  The  Navy 
Department  hitherto  chiefly  conspicuous  for  its  chaotic  con 
ditions  was  organized  into  bureaus  with  a  veteran  commander 
at  the  head  of  each.  The  naval  force  was  augmented  by  two 
new  squadrons — the  Home  and  the  African  squadrons.  The 
National  Observatory  was  established  with  the  eminent  Vir 
ginia  scientist,  Matthew  F.  Maury,  at  its  head,  and  the  first 
steps  were  taken  towards  the  founding  of  the  United  States 
Naval  Academy.  Increased  efficiency  was  imparted  to  the 
army,  and  the  fortifications  at  Old  Point  and  other  places, 
which  Mr.  Tyler  received  in  an  almost  dismantled  condition, 
bristled  when  he  left  the  government  with  guns  and  military 
equipment.  He  filled  the  important  posts  abroad  with  men 
like  Everett,  Wheaton,  Irving,  Thompson,  Gushing  and  Payne 
-  distinguished  for  ability  and  love  of  literature.  He  threw 
the  influence  of  his  office  in  favor  of  Morse  and  his  telegraph, 
sent  Fremont  to  discover  the  best  path  over  the  Western  plains 
and  through  the  mountains  to  Oregon,  and  encouraged  the 
caravans  of  immigrants  under  Elijah  White  and  others,  who 
went  to  make  their  homes  on  the  distant  waters  of  the  Colum 
bia  River. 

He  had  married,  as  his  second  wife,  in  June,  1844,  Miss 
Julia  Gardiner,  daughter  of  Hon.  David  and  Juliana  Gardiner, 
of  Long  Island,  New  York,  who  was  the  mother  of  his  two 
still  living  sons,  the  Hon.  David  Gardiner  Tyler,  ex-Congress 
man  and  present  Circuit  Judge,  and  Dr.  Lyon  G.  Tyler,  the 
distinguished  scholar  and  historian,  and  present  President  since 


*  Curtis,  Life  of  Daniel  Webster,  II,  p.  275. 

40 


1 888  of  the  ancient  College  of  William  and  Mary.    His  second 
wife  lies  buried  by  his  side  beneath  this  monument. 

After  leaving  the  White  House,  Mr.  Tyler  went  to  live  on 
an  estate  in  Charles  City  County,  three  miles  from  "Green- 
way,"  his  father's  old  home  and  his  own  birthplace,  and  to  his 
new  residence  he  gave  the  name  of  "Sherwood  Forest."  Here 
he  continued  to  dwell  for  the  rest  of  his  life,  ceasing  to  take 
an  active  part  in  politics,  but  even  in  his  retirement  exercising 
a  potent  influence  on  public  opinion  in  Virginia.  During  this 
time  he  was  in  much  demand  for  lectures  and  addresses,  and  in 
1857  he  was  the  orator  at  the  celebration  of  the  two  hundredth 
and  fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  settlement  at  Jamestown.  Old 
enmities  died  away,  and  he  acquired  much  of  his  former  great 
popularity  in  Virginia  and  in  other  States. 

The  growth  of  the  nationalist  principle  in  the  North,  as 
evidenced  by  the  rise  of  the  Republican  Party  in  1856,  brought 
the  country  face  to  face  with  the  dire  results  which  Mr.  Tyler 
had  always  apprehended.  The  two  nations  constituting  the 
Union  grew  more  and  more  unlike,  and  to  the  social,  industrial, 
and  economic  differences  formerly  existing  were  added  violent 
sectional  distrust  and  enmity.  The  election  of  Lincoln,  a 
Northern  man,  by  Northern  States  and  upon  a  platform  which, 
in  defiance  of  a  recent  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court,  denied 
the  right  of  a  Southern  man  to  go  with  his  slaves  into  any  of 
the  territories  secured  by  the  common  blood  and  the  common 
treasure,  was  construed  by  the  Southern  States  as  a  Northern 
monopoly  of  political  and  economic  power.  Deeming  the 
Union  under  all  these  circumstances,  to  have  become  a  positive 
failure,  and  asserting  the  natural  right  to  independence,  based 
on  the  vast  extent  of  their  Southern  territory,  and  a  population 
three  times  as  great  as  that  of  the  original  colonies,  they  ap 
pealed  to  the  words  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  and  to 
their  reserved  rights  under  the  Constitution,  and  prepared  for 
peaceable  separation. 

41 


In  this  emergency  Mr.  Tyler,  who  had  a  sincere  attachment 
to  the  Union  of  the  Fathers,  repeated  the  part  which  he  had 
played  in  1833.  He  tried  to  save  the  Union  by  peaceful  means, 
but  was  unsuccessful.  Upon  the  secession  of  South  Carolina, 
after  Mr.  Lincoln's  election,  his  counsel  and  advice  were  sought 
by  his  people,  and  he  was  elected  to  the  State  Convention  which 
met  in  Richmond,  February  13,  1861.  He  was  sent  as  Peace 
Commissioner  to  President  Buchanan,  and  it  was  due  to  his 
patriotic  efforts  that  the  Peace  Convention,  of  which  he  was 
chosen  President,  and  whose  purpose  was  to  preserve  the 
Union,  was  called  to  meet  in  Washington,  February  4,  1861. 
The  result  of  the  deliberations  of  this  conference  took  shape 
in  an  ambiguous  proposition,  which  Mr.  Tyler  opposed,  and 
which  the  Republican  Congress  rejected.  Realizing  after  this 
that  all  compromise  was  impossible,  Mr.  Tyler  advocated  the 
secession  of  Virginia,  and  on  the  I7th  of  April,  1861,  was 
elected  a  delegate  to  the  Provisional  Congress  of  the  Con 
federate  States,  and  was  an  active  member  of  that  body  in 
Richmond.  In  the  November  following  he  was  elected  a  mem 
ber  of  the  Confederate  House  of  Representatives,  but  died  on 
January  18,  1862,  before  taking  his  seat  in  the  latter  body. 

During  the  period  that  he  lived  after  the  beginning  of  the 
War  between  the  States,  he  suggested  the  system  of  gunboats 
devised  for  the  Confederacy;  and  Commodore  Matthew  F. 
Maury,  who  mentions  this  fact,  pays  him  the  tribute  of  stating 
that  his  death  was  the  heaviest  blow  sustained  by  the  Con 
federate  States  during  the  first  year  of  the  war.* 

Time  would  fail  for  the  rehearsal  here  of  the  opinions 
expressed  of  him  by  men  of  distinction  and  renown.  Mr. 
Davis  said  of  him  that  "he  was  the  most  felicitous  among  the 
orators  he  had  known" ;  Alexander  H.  Stephens  said  that  "his 
State  papers  compared  favorably  in  point  of  ability  with  those 


*  Official  Record  of  the  Union  and  Confederate  Navies,  Series  I,  Vol. 
6,  p.  633. 

42 


of  any  of  his  predecessors" ;  and  Daniel  Webster,  and  Henry  S. 
Foote,  and  Henry  A.  Wise,  and  George  Ticknor  Curtis,  and 
R.  M.  T.  Hunter,  and  a  host  of  other  great  men  bestowed  upon 
him  the  expressions  of  their  admiration,  respect,  and  regard. 

Concerning  his  general  appearance,  we  have  the  report  of 
the  novelist,  Charles  Dickens.  Recording  in  his  American 
Notes  an  account  of  a  visit  to  the  White  House,  in  1842,  he 
wrote  of  "his  mild  and  pleasant  expression"  and  of  his  "re 
markably  unaffected,  gentlemanly,  and  agreeable  manners," 
and  added  that  he  thought  that  "in  his  wrhole  carriage  and 
demeanor  he  became  his  station  singularly  well."  That  he 
was  a  man  of  fine  literary  accomplishments  is  shown  not  only 
by  his  messages  and  private  letters,  but  by  his  beautiful  and 
eloquent  addresses,  among  which  may  be  mentioned  his  oration 
on  the  death  of  Jefferson,  in  1826,  his  lecture  at  the  Maryland 
Mechanics'  Institute  in  1855,  an^  m*s  discourse  on  the  "Dead 
of  the  Cabinet,"  in  1856,  in  which  he  pays  a  tender  tribute  to 
Webster,  Calhoun,  Legare,  Upshur,  Gilmer,  Spencer,  and 
Wickliffe,  his  able  associates  in  the  conduct  of  the  government 
of  the  United  States. 

He  was  buried  in  Hollywood  Cemetery,  where  a  large  con 
course  gathered  to  testify  their  pride  in  his  greatness  and  their 
sorrow  for  his  departure ;  and  in  his  funeral  obsequies  city  and 
State  and  Confederacy  alike  took  part. 

And  now  the  Federal  Government  has  erected  this  monu 
ment  over  his  mortal  body;  but  the  significance  of  the  act  does 
not  lie  in  the  cost  or  the  beauty  of  the  monument  itself.  Its 
erection  is  unique  in  that  it  is  the  first  monument  to  be  voted 
by  the  Federal  Congress  to  any  man  whose  sense  of  duty  im 
pelled  him  to  take  sides  with  the  South  in  the  stormy  days  of 
secession.  Viewed  in  this  light,  this  memorial  shaft  to  John 
Tyler  is  the  most  impressive  and  significant  of  all  memorial 
structures  in  the  United  States,  for  it  is  the  first  in  which 
both  North  and  South  have  freely  joined,  and  it  stands  to  the 

43 


world  as  the  sign  and  pledge  of  a  reunited  country,  and  a  tes 
timony  that  the  passions  of  the  past  have  perished. 

John  Tyler,  statesman  and  patriot,  needs  no  eulogy.  The 
austere  epitome  of  his  life  and  deeds  can  convey  but  an  inade 
quate  conception  of  his  courage,  his  ability,  his  steadfastness, 
and  his  patriotic  devotion  to  country.  His  dust  reposes  here 
beneath  this  monument,  and  on  the  page  of  history  his  fame 
itself  is  monumental.  His  name  has  been  placed  there,  along 
side  those  of  the  great  leaders  of  our  epic  story  —  of  Jeffer 
son  and  Madison,  of  Calhoun  and  Davis,  and  as  long  as  the 
records  of  the  republic  shall  endure  he  will  be  remembered  and 
honored  as  one  of  its  most  illustrious  sons. 


44 


FORM  NO.  DD6  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  BERKELET 

BERKELEY,  CA  94720 


21-IOOm.8,'34 


Gaylord  Bros.,  Inc. 

Makers 

Stockton,  Calif. 
PAT.  JAN.  21.  1908 


50545 


864,358 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


